Leading an entitled employee is no picnic.
Employees with a sense of entitlement can cause frustration for both the person managing them, and other team members.
However, we should be careful not to dismiss these employees too quickly.
In this post, I’m going to discuss what an entitled employee is, why it happens and how you can lead them effectively.
What Is An Entitled Employee?
The term Entitled Employee is generally used to describe someone who feels that they are owed additional salary, benefits or promotion opportunities, without necessarily having earned them.
For example, you might have an employee who believes they deserve a pay rise after a short time in the role.
Or, an entitled employee may believe they should be promoted to a higher role, before they have demonstrated their potential for that role.
This term is not usually used to describe somebody who actually deserves the benefit.
For example, an employee whose contract states that they receive health care benefits as part of their package is fully entitled to claim them.
In other words, an entitled employee is someone who is often regarded as being spoilt or undeserving, and unwilling to put in the effort to get the reward.
What Causes An Entitled Employee to Be That Way?
Most people don’t come to work to do a bad job. Nor do they come to work to torment you, the manager.
No, there are usually some good reasons why someone might have an entitled mindset.
Here are some possible examples:
- An ambitious person may feel that they need to get ahead. This puts pressure on them to try to advance as quickly as possible.
- Someone who doesn’t respect the skills or experience required for a role may feel like they can already do it themselves, easily.
- A person with a privileged upbringing may be accustomed to having opportunities gifted to them.
- Someone who is frustrated with (and feeling insecure about) their lack of progression may appear as an entitled employee.
- A person who sees others (on social media, the news or through their personal networks) progressing quickly at a young age may believe they should be at that level too.
- Someone who lacks awareness of their own real skill level may believe they can do things they aren’t really ready for.
However, people are complex and there are other possibilities, too.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that a sense of entitlement is not necessarily malicious.
Learn More: Leading an Ambitious Employee? Do These Things.
So How Do We Lead An Entitled Employee?
It’s never easy leading an entitled employee. It can feel frustrating.
In many ways, there are similarities in leading an ambitious employee.
However, the main difference is that an entitled employee definitely hasn’t earned (yet) what they’re asking for!
Let’s look at some ways that you can handle an entitled employee if you have one in your team.
1. Keep Your Cool
First, it’s critical to keep calm when you’re leading an entitled employee.
They may be quite demanding, which can lead to feelings of frustration and annoyance.
However, an entitled employee is likely to react defensively or angrily if they are met with a combative attitude.
So try your best to stay calm, which will allow you to use the other strategies outlined below.
One way to feel calm, in control and to increase self-awareness is to reflect regularly about your own reactions and emotions.
You can do this simply and easily using my Useful Thinking Journal.
>>> You can get your copy of the journal using this link.
2. Set Clear Expectations About What’s Required
Sometimes an entitled employee doesn’t have a full appreciation for what’s needed to achieve the next level of progression.
That’s why it’s important to set clear expectations about what’s needed.
For example, if your entitled employee wants to be promoted or take on more responsibility, you need to clearly explain what is required to take that step.
That might mean additional qualifications or experience in different situations, or simply spending more time in their current role.
During my own career, I would sometimes feel frustrated about my seemingly slow progression in certain companies.
However, I came to realise a few things:
- Opportunities are not always freely available. It takes time for them to appear and you need patience.
- You can’t just get paid more, for doing the same amount of work. Often you need to be doing more (or take on greater responsibility) to achieve greater rewards.
- Many leaders want reassurance that you’ll be ready when you get promoted. That’s why you sometimes need to demonstrate that you are already working at the next level, before they’ll provide the opportunity.
These points may be useful to communicate to your entitled employee.
3. Help Your Entitled Employee See How Other People Got There
Entitled employees sometimes lack visibility of what others have done to get to where they are now.
They simply look at others and say “I reckon I could do that.”
One way to improve visibility is to have senior people discuss their story and progression with your entitled employee.
From this, you can map out a plan with them, to show them how they can progress.
Once they have the plan, they can decide whether it’s acceptable or not. Then they can make a decision about what they want to do.
4. Be Open and Honest About Opportunities
One thing that is not helpful is to string your entitled employee along with the hope of future opportunities, when you know there probably won’t be any.
Combined with Step 2 (clear expectations, above), you need to be honest about potential benefits or opportunities that are available.
There is no doubt that you will be constrained about what you can provide any of your team members, by way of salary increases or other benefits.
You need to be open about that, so your entitled employee knows where they stand.
And just to emphasise the point – you need to make it clear what is required to get the benefit.
In other words:
If you do this -> then you can get that.
Learn More: Honest Leadership: How to Bring It More Often (and Why It Matters).
5. Use Objective Performance Measures
An entitled employee believes they are owed certain benefits based on their performance.
If you believe they aren’t performing to the level required to obtain the benefits they want, then you need to be able to demonstrate that.
To do that, you’re going to need to be able to measure their performance objectively, so any performance gaps are clear.
Well-written, specific and measurable objectives can help with this, and I have a post about these here: Setting Team Goals: Tips for Thoughtful Leaders.
What you’re aiming for here is to reduce the “grey area”, where it’s not clear whether they are or aren’t performing well.
Failing to do this will mean they always have the ability to complain that they aren’t being rewarded – because you can’t really show the evidence that they aren’t performing.
6. Provide Feedback
Feedback is critical to all employees. They need to know where they can improve, and what they’re doing well.
Honest feedback is critical for the entitled employee too.
They need to know how they’re performing, to raise their self-awareness about their capabilities.
But don’t stop there. It may be beneficial to provide feedback about their behaviour, too.
If they are perceived as being entitled or not working hard enough, then it might be time to provide this feedback and get their opinion.
They might not like to hear this, but without providing the feedback, they may be oblivious to how you and the rest of the team perceive them.
Learn More: 10 Simple & Effective Tips For Giving Feedback.
Turn Your Entitled Employee Into a Deserving One
Entitled employees are perceived negatively, because they feel that the workplace owes them something for nothing.
But what if you can help your entitled employee to actual deliver what is needed to get the benefits they’re asking for?
Well, then they cease to be entitled. They become a deserving employee!
See if you can use some of the steps outline above to set clear expectations and have your people achieve what they actually deserve.
How do you deal with entitled employees? Let me and all the thoughtful leaders know in the comments below!
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